Although this is true, it’s pretty muted in this flick. The conceit behind the found footage element is that the girl wants to become a director; some of the shots are very good (too good, realistically) and there’s not a lot of shaky-cam.
“Old people are awful” … well, it starts out that way, but it grows into something more like “crazy people are awful”. But if you’re sensitive to the elderly being made fun of, this film will probably irk you.
I don’t recall any ‘old people are awful’ - We had quite a few ‘excuses’ for "just geting old’ for some of the behaviour, but I never got the impression that it was ‘old people are awful’ at any point of the movie.
The olny part that I recall of that would be daughter and parents having the major split/argument, but thats just typical ‘my parents hated me’ stuff.
I didn’t even need to wait. 
The Visit is not getting great reviews, but I’d give it a chance. And it’s true, Lady and Happening were two of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The problem with The Village was I had heard the twist before I saw it.
The Visit is a nice little horror movie - not gory, not sexually exploitative, really more suspenseful than "horror"ful (to coin a word). It’s a good movie to take a date, it’s a good one to take your (older) kids.
<pause>
HO!
Randwill, I know you might put heavy faith in reviews, but I’d suggest seeing it and making your own opinion. So far it sounds and seems like one of those movies that gets bad reviews but that most people see and really like anyway. I always thought Rotten Tomatoes was too harsh on movies, anyway.
The movie really isn’t that bad and pretty much everyone in this thread has said so. But if you still don’t want to try it out, it’s up to you (obviously). : p
I put this movie in my “Best Weekend EVAR for Horror Movie Openings?” thread a couple weeks back. Flipped a coin and went to Goodnight, Mommy instead, which I found very hard to bear.
Based on this thread, I think I’ll see this sometime over the next few days, even though I’m one of the “hatin’ on Shyamalan” crowd.
My wife and I watched it on its opening weekend; I’d heard and read that it was something of a return to form for Shyamalan in the sense that it was a more focused and tightly scripted movie. We both really enjoyed it (although, because my wife gets pretty queasy with trying to watch shaky-cam footage, she kept her eyes shut during a lot of it). It hits all the right marks in slow-building dread, spiked with some well-timed humor.
Although I had correctly guessed the reveal (and I agree that it’s not a twist so much as a reveal) because of reading between the lines of a nationally syndicated review, I still really enjoyed the movie because of its attention to small details and strong dedication to developing the characters of the kids (and Ed Oxenbould, the actor who plays Tyler, really does exceptionally well). I’d suggest to people who haven’t seen it, but want to, to put the idea of trying to find a “twist” out of their minds – just enjoy the movie for what it is. Some have faulted that the movie is too self-aware, but I don’t think it is – it’s a well-developed movie made by a filmmaker who appears to be happy working simply and quietly again.
I’m guessing this will be one of those movies that does good business after its wide release, through streaming and Redbox/Netflix.
I thought of something else: like the Paranormal Activity movies, *The Visit *might work better being seen at home anyway. The studios certainly don’t want that because they want big box office returns, but I think the found footage format lends itself to a smaller screen.
Except that there are currently 16 films with an 80% fresh or higher rating that I haven’t seen. Why would I choose a movie with a 58% rotten (and only 68% audience score) rather than one that is likely to be superior entertainment?
Oh, well…if you’re talking about choosing that movie over one you haven’t seen yet (if you’re choosing what movie to see at the theater, at that time), then yeah, I understand what you mean.
I’m just talking about giving it a chance eventually or someday or after you see your sixteen other films. That’s just a strong suggestion, though. If you feel confident enough that you are sure you won’t like it or don’t want to watch it for any reason, well, that’s your choice, haha.
Taking a friend to this in a few days. Given my prior experiences with M Night Shamalanga DingDong, I needed to see what the damage was. Even knowing the plot prior to seeing it, I still liked it.
I don’t see the horror in this movie. It was weird, but a horror? It was okay. A bit of a groaner. I almost gave up during that rap on the train but I don’t regret sticking with it.
Bumping, since I watched this last night.
I enjoyed it.
Since it’s Shyamalan, we have to look for the “twist” ending, but I didn’t think the ending was a twist ending, just the resolution of the question the movie is about: what is going on with the grandparents. and why are things so weird and creepy? The resolution was pretty predictable (I called it when the first visitor came to the door), but the way the story unwound was still enjoyable.
I think it’s hard to do something new or interesting with found footage, but this movie worked well. I was initially worried it was going to have a little too much meta film-geekery, but that settled down. And all of the principal actors did a great job.
This is definitely a horror movie. Both in the way that it’s shot, and in how it hits on so many primal fears (spoilered, since even though it’s been a while, so far people haven’t revealed much in this thread):
Claustrophobia, being chased (by a faceless pursuer even), being trapped (with a murderer), monster under the bed, disgust, insanity…
I think I like Shyamalan’s movies more than most do (I like Signs and Lady in the Water. The Happening is total trash), but I think this movie is just a solid horror movie and worth seeing if you like horror.
The Shamster was a one-movie wonder who might have been able to extend his reputation with the full *Unbreakable *trilogy - the first film showed great promise as a Part 1. He quite simply should be stripped of his self-awarded cool name and banned from Hollywood.
I could have sworn I posted in this thread but I guess not. I saw it in the theater when it came out and I really enjoyed it. The humor was unexpected but didn’t detract from the tension at all. I didn’t see the “twist”, or if you will, I did not figure out what was going on, though I try not to let myself try to figure things out because that spoils the fun. Since it’s been awhile can someone remind me why the woman was vomiting in the middle of the night?
I liked most of it, but I was incredibly annoyed by the ending. The mother knows that her two children are trapped in a house with two insane killers- and as soon as she can’t contact the local sheriff, that’s it? She has no other recourse than driving two hours to get there?
Now, I’m not American, so maybe the police in small towns does work like that, and there’s no other type of law enforcement allowed to do anything about your children getting murdered, but if that’s not the case, that ending may very well be the dumbest thing Shamalayan has ever done.
My wife and daughter saw it in the theater and came back talking about how freaked out they were. So I watched it on video about a month ago…eh. I found the little rapping kid annoying as heck, and it seemed to me that the source of the real tension in the movie was the kids’ own paranoia. The only part that said “horror movie” to me was less scary than simply disgusting.
It wasn’t really explained. She seemed to turn into a total psycho at nightfall, so perhaps she ate something that induced vomiting? The creepy thing wasn’t really that she was vomiting. It’s that she was just walking around vomiting on the floor. If she’d been bent over a toilet, icky, but not particularly creepy.
I did end up seeing it (my prediction was wrong, btw).
Decent. Not exceptional. Glad to see that Shyamalan’s budget is finally shrinking. I don’t know why they kept giving him full, blockbuster budgets and actors for so long when he was producing dud after dud for a decade.
He’s really a director/writer with promise. One hopes that some time on the back bench will let him finally come to grips with his flaws and figure out how to make good movies again.